The short Gospel passage that we proclaim today is an important message that has recently been improved in the new translation of St. John’s Gospel. Formerly, it was translated: “As the Father HAS loved me, so I HAVE LOVED you.” So let me repeat what you heard today instead. “As the Father loves me, so I also love you.” The Father’s love for Jesus and Jesus’ love for the Father are not a past event but a permanent, steady state into which Jesus invites his disciples to enter and remain, staying connected to that love as a branch stays connected to the vine. Jesus makes clear that his love for us is not some action or condition in history, but a connection that persists throughout time and is a present reality.
Jesus says he loves the disciples just as the Father loves him. In chapter five of the Gospel, Jesus revealed that the Father loves Jesus by showing him all that the Father is doing, and Jesus loves his disciples in the same way. Jesus lets his disciples know that God’s love for the Son encompasses the Father’s command to the Son to lay down his life for the world. This is, for John, the most important thing that God is doing. It is the highest and deepest expression of the love of the Son for the Father and the love of God the Father and the Son for the world.
Jesus’ love for God is expressed in concrete acts of obedience in time and space. Just as Jesus keeps the Father’s commandments and abides in the Father’s love, so Jesus’ disciples are to keep his commandments and abide in Jesus’ love.
For Jesus, the commandments are no burden; it is a formula for deep and abiding joy. To live in love for God and for one another is to share in the joy of doing the Father’s will. Jesus tells God and us that he wants his own joy to be made complete in his disciples. That becomes true each and every time we share in the Eucharist, the sacrament of divine love, Jesus’ gift of himself to each of us.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator